


Unbound

by astriddanes



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Character Death, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/F, Trauma, blizzard isn't paying me enough to stick to canon, coming to terms with being brought back to life, giving jaina the therapy she needs, giving sylvanas the therapy she needs, sisters working out their broken relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-06-29 10:03:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15727152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astriddanes/pseuds/astriddanes
Summary: Katherine Proudmoore is too late to rescue her daughter from Thros. In a desperate bid to save her, the Windrunner sisters offer a solution that comes with many unforeseen consequences for all involved. As Jaina is brought back to life, she struggles with the reality of undeath and what has happened to her, and the only one who can help her is the one who saved her from death: Sylvanas Windrunner.





	1. Sound the Bell

**Author's Note:**

> _He takes her in his arms._  
>  He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you  
> but he thinks  
> this is a lie, so he says in the end  
> you're dead, nothing can hurt you  
> which seems to him  
> a more promising beginning, more true.
> 
>  
> 
> \- _A Myth of Devotion _, Louise Glück__

Jaina is dying.

 

She heard the songs about this place growing up. Of young people who did cruel things and ended up here as a punishment from a witch sensing the darkness in their heart. Of women who carelessly broke hearts left and right and one scorned lover who called upon the old forests to give them justice. The dark place. The blighted lands. It had so many names but all the stories led to the same place: an eternal damnation of darkness.

 

The blighted lands take from her, little by little, leaving her weaker and weaker. She cannot even conjure up a flame anymore and she is so cold. She has been alone for – what, weeks? Months? Years? Just her and her thoughts. All the guilt festering like infected wounds. All the sorrow wrapping around her neck, making each breath feel like a mountain to climb. 

 

First she felt compelled to stay. Destined to. She would face her demons and survive. She was sure of it.

 

The thing about these lands, though, is that they know just what to say to drive the dagger in. And oh, how right they are. She failed so many – her father, Arthas, Varian, the citizens of Theramore. She should have done more, but whatever she did, it always happened at the wrong time. Too little and too late. She should have been more heartless at the right times. She keeps coming back to that conclusion. Too naive, too much heart, and too much goodness aimed the wrong way.

 

Jaina has only a lifetime of failures and regrets to show for herself. It seems deserving to die in this place, forgotten and haunted.

 

She has been at pivotal times in history so often and done nothing. Hands weighed down and choosing to turn away. She let the Horde kill her father for what, ten years of peace? Barely that? What a waste.

 

She stood aside when Arthas shattered. When he set himself upon the path that would ruin him, Lordaeron and Silvermoon. What if she had cut him down there? Would the world have been better? Would the Eastern Kingdoms still be whole?

 

She could have ended so many things before they brought ruination upon everyone. That is the most damning accusation of all. 

 

Jaina will die here, alone. She lost her way long ago. All the paths blur at the edges, the darkened trees blotting out any chance of finding the way. She has been to this place before. Perhaps she has never left this clearing. All the places look the same after long enough here.

 

She has not been able to walk for some time. She has sat here, in the same place, digging in the earth with her stiff hands. If no one else will give her a grave and a burial, at least she can do this for herself – or so she thought. Her hands are too weak for the hard soil, the frozen ground denying her even this.

 

It’s not fine. But it is. Like so many things wrecking her here, it just is, and she has endured enough torment. Now she wants to sleep.

 

The ground is needles against her bare cheek, the grass sharp and brittle, cutting her skin before fracturing. It should hurt, but she feels so little now. It’s a small comfort.

 

Jaina wants to say sorry to so many people, for so many things. They all start to melt together in her thoughts, a parade of mistakes and regrets. Funny how once she thought herself just and righteous and now she does not know who she is. Funny how the blighted lands take and take until you are a husk, and then you die, and you are alone always.

 

”Jaina!”

 

Her face is frozen stuck to the ground and her limbs are heavy, too heavy now. All she can do is watch. There’s lights coming.

 

In the stories, one can be brought back from the blighted lands. It’s usually someone who loves the victim so very much, enough to atone for their sins, enough to undertake the risky journey and not lose their way. Vaguely, she wonders who even feels enough for her to do this. It has to be someone – the ghosts that haunt her never bring lights with them.

 

”Jaina! Where are you?”

 

It’s too late.

 

In the distance, she can see lanterns, can hear her voice being called, but they will not reach her in time.

 

Jaina draws her last breath alone. 

 

* * *

 

 

”Her eyes were open,” Katherine Proudmoore mumbles, her glassy eyes fixed on the body of her daughter. ”And she was still warm. So warm. If I had just been a little faster, a little bit wiser…”

 

No one speaks. Jaina’s body lays on a bed, her clothes still covered in a thin sheen of frost that won’t melt. Part of her face is ruined, a cheek so frostbitten the skin has broken off. Death does not become her.

 

”Her hand was reaching out when I came. Her fingers stuck in the ground. I… I did this to her. I exiled her. I caused this.”

 

Genn Greymane takes her hands, firmly, and peels them away from Jaina. He holds her shoulders, and they all brace for her to cry, but she doesn’t. It’s almost worse. He takes her out of the room to get her something to drink.

 

Alleria and Vereesa Windrunner stay, as does Mathias Shaw, each at their own corner of the room.Then Vereesa can’t anymore, she approaches the bed and her eyes are brimming with tears. 

 

”To die like this,” Vereesa says, touching Jaina’s intact cheek. ”You came all the way home and this is what happened to you.”

 

Alleria pushes herself away from the wall and steps up to her little sister’s side, arms folded across her chest. ”What will we do without her?”

 

”Lose.” Mathias Shaw stays in his place, his mouth a thin straight line. ”It’s the truth. We are stretched thin as it is already. Without her, we will lose a lot more, day by day.”

 

”It can’t be that bad!” Vereesa interjects. 

 

”Oh, but it is.” Shaw sighs. ”Without her, we don’t have Kul Tiras. Not really. We still don’t know where the lost fleet is. It will take a long time, but we are not in a good position.”

 

Genn comes in, alone, glaring at Shaw. ”We can’t lose hope. Not like this.”

 

Alleria studies Jaina’s face, then reaches out and pushes her eyelids down. The eyes were starting to turn milky, the gaze of her dying visage turning all the more ghastly. Then she turns to Genn, bracing herself for his inevitable reaction. ”There are ways.”

 

”Don’t even think to mention her name,” Genn snarls, a shadow passing over him, as if the wolf is aching to spring out. His patience has certainly grown thin in recent months. 

 

Alleria doesn’t want to speak her name either. It feels like bringing ill fortune over them all, even just thinking about her. ”She knows how to do it. How to bring her back.”

 

Shaw shakes his head. ”Who knows what she will do with Jaina?”

 

”If I plead. If I beg. If I trade with her.” Alleria doesn’t know exactly what one can trade with her, or what she would want. But she knows that her sister knows many dark things about death and undeath. She looks to Vereesa, pleading, but Vereesa is lost in thought, her tear-stained cheeks making Alleria feel… That she has missed too much. That she doesn’t understand who or what this human was to her sister. That she has no idea what this world is truly about anymore.

 

”We should start preparing for a funeral.” Shaw wastes no time.

 

”Not yet.” Katherine enters, head held high and defiant. ”There are ways. The Thornspeakers must know something. It is in their traditions.”

 

”She is dead,” Shaw says, ever the realist. ”We should let the dying stay dead.”

 

Katherine gives him a look that makes him wither and avert his eyes, ashamed. ”She deserves a better fate. Her soul may still be stuck in Thros. I do what I must to give her justice.”

 

None speak. They are on land they do not know, and have seen things that should be impossible in the last weeks. Perhaps… It is a thought too dangerous to give hope, too heartbreaking to say no to. 

 

* * *

 

 

Ulfar disagrees. He tells Katherine that what she wants breaks the laws of nature: that dragging someone back from the dead can undo many things. Even he, thousands of years old, can’t stand against Katherine.

 

”You would undo the world for her?” Ulfar asks in horror.

 

”I would undo myself for her. She died not knowing she was forgiven. She died in vain. I can’t let that stand.” Katherine is wrung out and empty of tears, and she has brought Jaina with her. She holds her daughter, the hood pulled down over her ruined face, her horse shifting uneasily at carrying her. It too can sense that something is wrong. 

 

Ulfar agrees to look, only look, at her. He fought Katherine enough on her entering the blighted lands. She will draw more out of him if she has to do it by force. 

 

Katherine’s honor guard eases Jaina out of her grasp and she feels a great hollowness in her arms when her daughter is laid out on the ground. Ulfar sniffs the air over Jaina and winces. ”She is cursed. And she is not wholly dead.”

 

A hope flickers in Katherine’s heart. ”What do you mean?”

 

”A piece of her is not here. It is stuck in Thros, or between the worlds.”

 

”Is there a chance? To bring her back?”

 

Ulfar is quiet for many moments, then nods. ”We will give her a chance.”

 

They venture deep into the forest, the trees huge and ancient, blotting out the sky. Katherine holds onto Jaina the entire ride, catching herself stroking her daughter’s hair more than once. It has been so long since she last saw her. How much she had changed. How old she had grown.

 

For a few days, it had been easy to sentence her for her crimes. Exile. A worthy punishment, befitting the crimes of treason to the nation. Jaina had lost her accent, speaking like a mainlander. She had lost her golden locks, her youthful energy: in the time she had been gone, she had grown old and white-haired. The dark circles under her eyes alone had made her look so different. She had recognized Jaina and… Not. It had been a different woman than the girl who left Boralus two decades ago. Not her little girl. A fully grown woman trying to stake a claim at a Proudmoore legacy she had no right to. 

 

Of course, Katherine had been wrong. And she had been too late to fix that mistake. 

 

They come to a stone inscribed with runes, and lay Jaina down upon it. The frost on her clothes still has not thawed. Ulfar assures Katherine it is a sign of her limbo, that they will undo it. She hopes he is right.

 

Ulfar hums, and the winds begin to howl, shaking loose old dead leaves from the trees and raining down on them. 

 

The Thornspeakers taught the Kul Tirans about the power of song. That the land and sea around them is imbued with a power that bends itself to the song, to the music and rhythm, moreso than elsewhere. A song to part the mists, another song to swell the tide. This song, however, is one that makes Katherine’s skin crawl and her horse kick wildly in fright.

 

The forest starts to wither. Lightning crashes into the trees, and winds rip at their clothes. The grass yellows, browns and finally turns to dust. ”Nothing will grow here for hundreds of years,” Ulfar says, sorrowful, his voice both the hum of the song and his spoken words. ”We have poisoned the land for this. Is this what you want?”

 

Katherine can’t look at him. She can’t bear this – the price of doing it, and the price of not doing it. Either way, she will continue to pay with all she has to undo her greatest mistake: exiling her daughter to death.

 

The shadows grow, and there’s menace in the air. ”We are ripping the veil between us and the blighted lands. Many things will pour through,” Ulfar warns. Then a chill swells, and the frost on Jaina grows, crawling onto Katherine’s hands and down onto the stone and ground. 

 

Ulfar calls out to Katherine, over the storm building above them. ”This is it.”

 

”What do you mean, this is it? She’s…”

 

”This is as far as I can go for this, Katherine.” Ulfar holds out a dagger. ”You must take the final step. Blood for blood, but not life for life.”

 

Katherine takes the dagger and stares at the sharp blade. ”Will it work?” 

 

”There are no guarantees with magic like this. This should have been forgotten thousands of years ago. I do not know if the earth is strong enough to carry it through.”

 

Katherine cuts her palm and lets droplets fall onto Jaina’s face. She watches, horrified, as Jaina’s gauntleted arm becomes encased in ice and then fractures. Tree roots grow through the frost, breaking and shattering, weaving themselves over her arm.

 

This is not it. This isn’t bringing her back.

 

She turns her head up, looking at Ulfar. ”What are you doing? Stop!”

 

Ulfar ignores her, and the tree roots grow thicker, Jaina’s arm gone and replaced with the growth. The vines snap at Jaina’s chest, burrowing in. _No no no no._

 

Katherine takes the dagger and thrusts it into Ulfar’s side, and the old drust stops his singing. The wind dies out instantly, but the land around them is withered.

 

”You were killing her!” Katherine accuses, her bloodied hands grasping at Jaina. Her arm is gone, replaced with the drust growth.

 

”I was letting her pass on,” Ulfar says, pained. ”You are blinded by grief.”

 

”That is not what I asked you to do!”

 

”Katherine… She is dead. You must let the cycle happen.”

 

”You said there’s something left of her still alive. Was it true?”

 

Ulfar nods. ”That I did not lie about. But to drag that back… You saw what this alone did to the forest. What are you willing to give for her?”

 

Katherine holds Jaina’s face in her hands. Her daughter. Her guilt. Her loss. ”You ask a grieving mother a question like that, as if you didn’t know the answer.”

 

”I will not break the cycle,” Ulfar says. ”I will only warn you.”

 

Around them, trees are crashing down, rotten from the inside out. The land fractures further, breaking apart. The earth was not strong enough to hold the ritual, and now tears itself asunder.

 

* * *

 

 

”We tried.” Katherine holds Jaina to her chest, too tired to cry anymore. She fears letting go, even though her hands have grown cold holding on to her. ”He said there is something left. There’s still a chance.”

 

Alleria looks at Genn, and the old wolf bares his teeth in disgust. They discussed it over and over while Katherine was gone, and though Genn disagrees, turns into a worgen to intimidate Alleria out of it, she does not budge. Alleria kneels down, putting a hand on Katherine’s knee. ”There is still one way. One chance.”

 

Katherine meets Alleria’s gaze. ”Take it. What else do I stand to lose?”

 

Genn snarls. ”You are risking too much doing this! Once she has Jaina, she will not let go. She will use it to control her!”

 

”Then we will bargain something big enough for her to not,” Alleria states, glaring back at Genn. ”I do not trust her, but I have to try. And she will not decline a fair trade.” She leaves the room, knowing she has Katherine’s blessing to try. That is all she needs.

 

And a bargaining chip.

 

Vereesa awaits her by the door. ”I heard she said yes,” the little sister says in a low voice. 

 

”Yes,” Alleria replies, tugging open a void portal with her hand. ”I am going to see her.”

 

Vereesa tilts her head. ”She will say no.”

 

”I will trade. I will bargain.”

 

”And you will beg and get nothing.” Vereesa looks between Alleria and the void portal. ”Take me with you. I may know something she will agree to.”

 

Holding hands, they step through the portal. Vereesa has her eyes screwed shut, hard, and Alleria looks her little sister tenderly as she leads her through the void places they must traverse to get to Sylvanas. Blood knows the way, through death and undeath, through the worlds and years. With the void, Alleria can go anywhere her sisters are.

 

She squeezes Vereesa’s hand when they arrive. ”We’re here,” she whispers, and Vereesa lets our a breath she must have held through the entire trip, her eyes snapping open. 

 

Before them, on a throne carved from bone and adorned with the red crest of the Horde, sits Sylvanas. She’d be almost resplendent if she was alive.

 

Around the room, guards have raised their shields and swords, and Sylvanas watches it all with disinterest, reclined in her seat.

 

”Sisters,” Sylvanas greets in a flat voice, propping her chin up in her hand. ”Have you come to assassinate me?”

 

”No,” Alleria says, holding up her empty hands. ”We have come to ask for your aid.”

 

Sylvanas smiles. It is terrifying to see: her lips part and sharp fangs are visible, and her red eyes glow. She gestures for the guards to stand down, waiting for them to leave the throne room before she rises and approaches. ”What would you ask of me?”

 

”Jaina Proudmoore has died,” Alleria says, refusing to flinch in front of her younger sister. ”Bring her back.”

 

”You think I am some service you can call upon when you need it?” Sylvanas is still smiling, looking between her sisters. ”You slight me and loathe me, hate me and curse my name, but when it suits you, you come begging favors and try to call upon… What, exactly? Our sisterly love? You have shown me precious little.”

 

Alleria holds open the void, using it like a window to show Sylvanas’ Jaina’s dead body. Katherine still cradles it, stroking Jaina’s hair when she thinks nobody is watching.

 

”So it is true,” Sylvanas muses, studying the image closely before Alleria snaps her fingers and it vanishes. ”She is dead. More than dead. She is ruined.”

 

Alleria grows tired of her sister’s cruelty. ”Can you do it or not?”

 

”Perhaps.” Sylvanas coyly avoids a direct answer. ”It will take much out of me. What do you offer in return?”

 

Vereesa speaks up for the first time since they arrived. ”I will live up to the promise I broke,” she says, meeting Sylvanas’ gaze without flinching.

 

Something changes in Sylvanas’ demeanor, her smile faltering as she leans in close. ”Will you now?”

 

Vereesa takes a deep, shaking breath. ”Yes.”

 

”No. No!” Alleria grabs at Vereesa’s shoulder, pulling her away. ”You can’t do this! What about your sons?” Alleria hisses. 

 

”I will figure something out.”

 

”Sister-”

 

”I agree,” Sylvanas says, her voice cutting Alleria off.

 

Vereesa gives Alleria a look, a mouthed _sorry_ , then pushes past her and extends her hand to Sylvanas. Sylvanas eyes it warily. 

 

”I will need a bigger gesture than this, considering what happened last time.”

 

Licking her lips, Vereesa digs her nail into the palm of her hand until she draws blood. ”I swear to forfeit my life as living,” she begins, and when Alleria tries to stop her she just shakes her head. ”I forfeit my life in return for Jaina’s.”

 

A darkness swells up, and the flames lighting up the chamber go out for a brief second. Alleria feels a great rush of dread, and then as soon as it all came, it is gone, the lights back, the flames flickering back to full force.

 

Sylvanas grasps Vereesa’s hand. ”So it is sworn. _Sister_.”

 

”You must give me some time,” Vereesa says, her voice faltering. ”For my sons.”

 

”Of course,” Sylvanas promises. ”I am not that cold-hearted. You may have two weeks.” When she lets go of her sister’s hand, Vereesa is crying silently. 

 

”And now?” Alleria asks, feeling… Nothing. Defeat. Distress. It all bubbles at the back of her throat, bitter and vile, but she cannot bring any of them further up than that. She should have stopped them from doing this. She knows already she will regret this moment until her dying day.

 

”Take her body to where I died the first time,” Sylvanas says. ”I will meet you there.” She smiles, and this time Alleria cannot help but shiver.

 

Soon both her sisters will be beyond her reach.

 

* * *

 

 

Ever since Sylvanas died here, in what has become the Ghostlands, Vereesa has avoided this particular place. The ground is charred black, the trees gnarled and growing in on themselves, piercing through their own trunks and bleeding dark sap. The land may never heal. It hurts to see.

 

It is hard to be here, remembering the place when the woods were beautiful and alive.

 

They carefully lay Jaina down on the ground and wait for Sylvanas, who comes riding alone. Her skeletal horse makes Vereesa’s guts roil. Is this what awaits her? A wretched unlife? An existence mocking life at every turn?

 

She looks down at Jaina. _For her… For all she has done for me… She deserves the years more than I do._ And Jaina can do more than Vereesa can. For all her age, all her life, she truly is the little sister. Not a diplomat, and not a warchief, and definitely not a void abomination. She’s just little baby Vereesa, marrying men who die and following people stronger than her.

 

It stings, but it’s the truth, and Vereesa can’t hide from it anymore.

 

The moonlight hits the grove and a shimmer surrounds Sylvanas, briefly, before it comes into focus: three val’kyrs, beautiful and terrifying. They radiate a cool light, flanking Sylvanas, their wings beating without stirring the air.

 

”You make strange pacts, sister,” Alleria comments.

 

”I do what I must for the future of my people,” Sylvanas replies, kneeling down next to Jaina’s body. She takes her glove off and touches the blood-soaked points of her clothing, the icicles on her dress breaking under Sylvanas’ fingertips.

 

”Will she be the same when she comes back?” Vereesa asks, trying not to sound too hopeful.

 

Sylvanas chuckles. ”Was I?”

 

”Why here, of all places?” Alleria asks.

 

”The veil between the worlds is thinner here for me,” Sylvanas says, her fingers tracing over Jaina’s face, gentle and almost… Kind. ”I can pass through it in places like this far more easily. And perhaps, bring her back. If the shadows will let me take her.” She turns her face to the sky, the moon at its zenith. ”It is time.”

 

Sylvanas rises to her feet, and the val’kyrs place their hands on her. A howling wind builds up, ripping at their clothes, whipping dirt into their eyes. And then, just as suddenly as it came, it is gone, and so is Sylvanas. 

 

At their feet, Jaina’s eyes are wide open again, blood dripping out of them, staining her cheeks red.

 

Alleria reaches for Vereesa’s hand, squeezing it tightly when she finds it. ”Are we doing the right thing, sister?”

 

Vereesa leans her head on Alleria’s shoulder. ”I don’t know. I hope we are.”

 

”Me too.”

 

* * *

 

 

The shadowlands. Sylvanas had hoped never to return here. She has seen this land twice now. Even a moment here is an eternity, and she remembers both times too well. It is the same – but this time, she has lights guiding her way.

 

The val’kyrs at her side illuminate the path, and where their light falls, nothing can approach them. Beneath her feet, she hears bones crushing, feels things writhing. A place for all the lost souls, all the damned ones. For all her Forsaken.

 

”Something is holding her here,” Svala says, her voice echoing across the lands. A darkness surges against their light, but does not deter them. ”It wants her kept here, forever.”

 

Part of Sylvanas does not care what happens to Jaina Proudmoore. She is just another Alliance trouble, a mage too powerful for her own good, and a heart too vengeful for Sylvanas’ good.

 

The things she is willing to do for her sisters.

 

A creature made of sticks and bones, dripping flesh and eerie blue light, stands hunched over Jaina, its teeth bared as they come closer. It sniffs the air. ”You reek of death, banshee,” it sneers, but there is a hunger in its words.

 

”It is my burden,” Sylvanas says, wary of the thing, trying to gauge its intentions. 

 

It takes a step closer. ”You’ve come for her.”

 

Sylvanas aims her bow. ”Perhaps.”

 

”I will trade her.” It points at Eydis. ”For that.”

 

”No. You have something that does not belong to you.” 

 

”Neither is it yours.” It roars, launching at Sylvanas. The val’kyrs weave their light into Sylvanas, burning her and infusing her arrow, and when she lets it loose it pierces through the creature and it breaks apart, vanishing.

 

”It is merely gone,” Fjola remarks. ”For a moment.”

 

”Then we should hurry,” Sylvanas says, looking at the form of Jaina on the ground, lifeless and silent, eyes open and staring into nothingness. ”Jaina Proudmoore.” She calls the name softly, and Jaina blinks. Sylvanas extends her hand towards Jaina as the human sits up.

 

”Who are you?” Jaina asks, her voice broken. ”You are so bright… So light…”

 

”Come. I will bring you back.”

 

”Will coming with you be better?”

 

”Look around you. Do you wish to stay?”

 

Jaina gazes up in wonder at Sylvanas, at the val’kyrs, and takes Sylvanas’ hand.


	2. Ghost

Jaina is not sure if she is dead. She feels like it, close to it, as if it just wringing something out of her before letting her go. A final sacrifice before she can rest. She wishes death would hurry up and take her already. The waiting is the worst.

 

Something of her is caught elsewhere. She feels it like you would feel a phantom limb: forever gone but still aching. So it goes. She is too tired to do anything else. She has let go already, now she is waiting for this to let go of her.

 

A blinding light flashes in the distance, and then remains steady, approaching. No. She has been near the Holy Light all her life, from Arthas to Uther to Anduin. This is not that light. It is cooler, colder. It still fills her with calm seeing it.

 

”Jaina…” An ethereal voice, neither of this realm nor the living, not fully, transcending both without being either. She wets her lips and calls back.

 

The light is a being. The light calls her name. The light chases away the crushing darkness surrounding her and offers a hand.

 

”Where will you take me?” Jaina asks. She still wants to die. She still wants death. Is this it? Is this the after? She had always wondered where her father had ended up. Where Uther, Arthas, Antonidas, Rhonin, Aegwynn, where they had all gone after… After death. Was this all? An endless waking darkness? It hardly seems enough.

 

”Back home.”

 

Jaina takes the hand, and something comes back to her in a rush: pain. So much pain.

 

She opens her mouth to scream and feels her voice cracking deep in her throat.

 

* * *

 

 

A weak wind picks up and tugs at Vereesa’s hair. They have been waiting all night and the sun is rising, but the wind is blowing from the wrong direction, carrying a chill with it that makes hers and Alleria’s breaths turn into clouds. Alleria gives her hand a final squeeze and then lets go.

 

She tries not to feel stung by it. Her sisters let her go a lot. She should be used to it by now.

 

Between one blink of the eye and another Sylvanas returns to them, the val’kyrs at her side shimmering before vanishing again.

 

”Did it work?” Vereesa asks.

 

Sylvanas looks down at Jaina. ”Yes. It did.” Vereesa’s eyes follow and she sees that the frost covering Jaina’s body is thawing at the edges. ”It will take some time though.” Sylvanas wipes at the tears of blood on Jaina’s face, checking her milky eyes. She is looking for something.

 

”What is it?” Alleria asks.

 

”She will be changed when she comes back.”

 

”In what way?”

 

Sylvanas gestures at the eyes, the cheek wound open enough to show a glimpse of her teeth underneath the ice crystals melting on top of it, the gnarled roots replacing her arm. ”This will not be undone. There are illusions, of course, but she will need to learn to live with this.”

 

”Will she… Will she be alive, or undead?”

 

Sylvanas purses her lips together. ”That remains to be seen. But she will _be_ , on this side of the worlds. Is that enough for you?” 

 

Vereesa and Alleria look at another. Years ago, they used to be able to read each other perfectly, a simple glance telling the other exactly what they thought. But the years – thousands for Alleria, and decades for her – has changed it. Vereesa never expected to see Alleria like this. So distant and cold. Almost like Sylvanas. She nods and Alleria does too, but she looks as disappointed as Vereesa feels.

 

It’s so hard to bridge the distance time has put between them.

 

”I… I must make preparations, then.” Vereesa looks at Sylvanas.

 

”It is a luxury to be able to leave no unfinished business behind,” her sister says, studying her with a tilted head. ”You should savor the opportunity.”

 

Vereesa hunches down next to Jaina, stroking her hair. The hope and pride of not just Kul Tiras, but the Alliance. Vereesa always believed in her being the tipping point that could change wars. What is she, in comparison? Just a high elf ranger who each day hears of one of the Silver Covenant opting to douse themselves in the void and join her sister. She’s nothing now, compared.

 

It’s a trade she is willing to make. Over and over. For the only thing she still believes in. 

 

”I will open a portal for you,” Alleria offers. ”Take five steps with eyes closed. Then you will be home.” She guides Vereesa through and then lets go.

 

There are whispers, so many, and Vereesa tries not to breathe, tries not to listen. _One of them will embrace you. One of them will never love you again._ Step. _She is changed forever and nothing you do can change it._ Second step. _She will betray your trust at the last moment. It is what you were made for: suffering._ Third step, and she covers her ears. _You were never meant for greatness like them. All you did was play at glory and fail._ Fourth step and her heart aches. _You miss her rage. You miss how she made you feel rage._ Fifth step and… Warmth. Sunshine.

 

Home.

 

When she opens her eyes she sees her sons leap up from their books, always as excited to see her again, rushing to hug her. She holds them tight, trying not to think about the future she has doomed herself to.

 

* * *

 

 

Alleria and Sylvanas stand on each side of Jaina’s body, dragging out the awkward silence between them. Or rather, Alleria drags it out. Sylvanas is pre-occupied with watching Jaina, as if she is seeing something Alleria cannot. It annoys her, a little.

 

”We should take her someplace safer,” Sylvanas finally says. ”Sin’dorei interference right now would be… An annoyance.”

 

”I agree.” Alleria opens up a void portal but Sylvanas shakes her head.

 

”Better to stay in one realm than to traverse through many. Things may get lost in the process.”

 

”Do you do this often?”

 

”This was different than the usual raising,” Sylvanas says, picking Jaina up in her arms. ”There are so many ways to die, and so few ways to come back.”

 

Alleria helps hoist Jaina’s body up onto Sylvanas’ mount, the skeletal horse barely reacting to the added weight. The unnatural glow of its eyes catches Alleria’s attention and she pauses, staring into them, feeling as if another person – or thing – is looking back at her, something else than the horse. It unnerves her.

 

”I can take her from here,” Sylvanas says, mounting up behind Jaina. She holds the human around the waist, the head slumped back against Sylvanas’ shoulder, the milky dead eyes staring up at the vanishing stars.

 

”Respectfully, no.”

 

”I see. Is it that the Alliance does not trust me, or is it you?” Sylvanas narrows her eyes. ”You, I think.”

 

”The Alliance will never trust you.”

 

”Yes, with Genn frothing at the mouth while he demands the little lion kill me and mine.” She sighs. ”Come along. We will ride south.”

 

The sun rises as they ride in silence, keeping off main roads. Alleria keeps her bow at the ready, firing arrows before any animal can even pick up their scent. Mostly, it’s just silent between them – the forest creaks, the wind rustles the leaves, the hoofs of their steeds crush undergrowth.

 

When the sun hits zenith, Sylvanas pulls the hood over Jaina’s face. Between the three of them, Alleria can only hear herself breathing.

 

Alleria can’t stop thinking of Vereesa. It bugs her enough to speak up. ”You shouldn’t have accepted her offer.”

 

Sylvanas shrugs. ”She made it. It was her decision. She’s not a child anymore.”

 

Alleria fixes her eyes on the road, straining to keep her voice even. ”She will always be my little sister.”

 

”It must be good to have a sister who loves you back unconditionally.” The bitterness in Sylvanas’ voice stung.

 

”You think she does?” Alleria bites back. ”I failed her as much as you did. She’s wary.”

 

”It is better than hostile.”

 

* * *

 

 

Once upon a time, there lived three sisters in a forest and they loved each other above all else. Then one left the world, another died and the third lost herself in grief. 

 

Sylvanas had heard the tales already. The Windrunners. Tragedy come alive. A tale told to – what, scare small children? To teach them that all things pass and end, that love does not conquer all? A tale for times of war.

 

She had never doubted that Alleria would return. She had, however, dreaded it. And Alleria was changed – beautiful still, but less cheerful, and far more world-weary and disappointed in ways she tried to hide under a calm voice and even gaze. A sister could tell though. Where others fell for the act, perhaps even her beloved heroic husband, Sylvanas saw right through it.

 

The memories of old Alleria clashed against the new one. But then again, the same rang true for all of the sisters. Vereesa had been consumed by grief, then rage, and then sorrow. She was far from their beloved little sister.

 

Above all, Sylvanas knows what her sisters see when they look upon her: undeath. An unholy reminder of what ravaged and ruined their homeland, of what sent Quel’thalas scrambling to the Horde, and of all the misery that has come in tow. 

 

Once, during a heated argument in the shadows of Garrosh’s trial, Sylvanas asked Vereesa if she would be happier with Sylvanas dead, truly dead, forever dead. And Vereesa had spat out an angry yes before covering her mouth and shaking her head.

 

Can they blame her for being bitter? For being angry? They will anyway, always. It is how the tale goes.

 

After another hour of silent riding, Sylvanas cannot stop herself. Even when she was alive, she would dig around in Alleria’s life, searching for the aching points and apply pressure. Back then, she did it to help. Now? Things are different.

 

”Why the void?” she asks.

 

Alleria tenses up. ”It was there when nothing else was.”

 

”And you trust it?”

 

”No.” Alleria turns, eyeing Sylvanas with suspicion. ”Why the Horde?”

 

”They were there when the Alliance burned us. They accepted us when everyone else called us horrific, crimes against nature, against life. They were there when the Alliance saw it fit to bury us alive and chant prayers above our sealed coffins, thinking it would undo the curse.” Sylvanas reaches one hand up to stroke a stray strand of hair from Jaina’s cold forehead. She smiles as she speaks, a bitter and angry smile, lip drawn back in a sneer and fangs exposed. ”How do you think they will treat her? With respect and love, admiration and forgiveness? Or will they just see her as an extension of me?” 

 

”They will know better.”

 

Sylvanas laughs. ”The Alliance must be truly desperate to turn to me.”

 

”Gloat all you want.”

 

”Oh, sister, I am not gloating. I am reminding you that the world has changed since you left. What do _you_ know of it, really?” She moves her shoulder, making Jaina’s head bounce. ”Do you know how she and Vereesa ruined each other?”

 

Alleria bites the inside of her cheek. ”Vereesa mentioned it.”

 

”Liar. She did not. She is still ashamed.” Sylvanas digs her heels in and her steed breaks into a gallop over the flat field opening up in front of them, hoping to cross it quickly. The last thing she wants is some stray stranger or adventurer seeing who she is carrying and making assumptions. The war is tense enough as it is without this added problem.

 

Alleria does not fall behind, matching her sister’s speed. Her burning glare and worsening mood amuses Sylvanas, who cannot help but dig into wounds she knows are festering. ”Has marriage treated you well?”

 

”Angling for gossip? Tactical advantage?”

 

”I’m a sister asking her sister how her life has been. Nothing more.”

 

”Turalyon is fine.” Alleria replies too fast. It gives her away.

 

Sylvanas pressed the matter. She has to, now that Alleria has left herself open like that. ”Do you miss him?”

 

”Spend millennia with a single man and see if you miss them when apart a few months.”

 

”Does his touch burn you?”

 

Alleria shoots Sylvanas a glare that she shrugs off.

 

”The Light burns my Forsaken. It burns me too. I wonder what it does to someone infused with void?”

 

”Normal paladins can touch me just fine. I have tried. It’s just, him… He forged himself in the light in a different manner. It suffuses every particle in him. His touch is searing hot and painful.” Alleria closes her eyes. ”A thousand years ago, the naaru aboard the ship punished and imprisoned me. He didn’t disagree. My own husband, the man I poured so much love and care into, made a choice and it wasn’t me. It just became very clear what his priorities were. Light above all. And I have loved him a little less each day since.”

 

”What does love matter when the light could tell him to kill you one day and he would blindly follow?” Sylvanas smiles. ”Such a tragedy.”

 

”The Windrunner legacy, it would seem.” Alleria smiles, a small smile that falters the second it appears. " That’s hardly the worst of it. Arathor is so happy we are both back. He and Turalyon act as if we are a happy family now.”

 

”And you already want to leave again.”

 

Alleria’s voice drops. ”I do. But what does that make me? The bad one. The cruel mother and loveless wife.”

 

”You enjoy leaving. You left home, you left us, you left Azeroth, you left your son.”

 

”I left because staying would be far more unbearable.”

 

Sylvanas feels a movement against her chest. The body slumped against her is no longer just a body. Jaina Proudmoore is awakening to the rest of her life as undead. She has so many terrible days to look forward to. ”She’s coming to.”

 

Jaina lets out a pained moan, her eyelids fluttering. She is still treading the line between consciousness, but at least she is back in her own body. That much worked. Now comes the trial of enduring what she has become.

 

”What will she be like?” Alleria asks quietly. ”Will she be herself?”

 

”One can always hope.” Sylvanas stops her horse, watching Jaina’s face as her lips move but no words come out. ”If you let her stay with me and my people, we can ease the transition.”

 

”No. Out of the question.”

 

”Suit yourself. I will not take responsibility for any… Oddities in behavior.”

 

”We can handle it, I’m sure.” And with that, Sylvanas helps lift Jaina over onto Alleria’s mount and her sister takes Jaina through a void portal, vanishing without so much as a goodbye. Just like when she left through the dark portal.

 

Sylvanas smirks, riding back to where she left her escort.

 

The Alliance expects Jaina to come back wholly the same, but death does not work like that. As long as it has a chance to grip you, it will ravage you. And being dragged back to life… Is a curse as much as it is a blessing.

 

Perhaps she will endure and thrive. Perhaps she will not.

 

Sylvanas does not care, either way. Her deal of the bargain is done. She has won this round.

 

* * *

 

Jaina sits all night in a bedchamber staring at her mirror image. Her fingers touch her skin then withdraw in horror. She is so cold to the touch. When Katherine tries to hug her she takes two steps back, and now she can barely stand to touch herself.

 

She’s not entirely sure who she is anymore.

 

When she closes her eyes, she feels the chill of death crawl back up her spine. Opening them, she sees herself: her eyes are milky white, the blue of her irises blurry underneath the layer that covers them. Then there is the cheek. When she moves her tongue she can see it move through the hole there, and it makes her want to rip her skin off. It is so unnerving. So _wrong_. Everything about her right now is wrong and she doesn’t know how to fix it. She’s not a healer, she doesn’t know death, she definitely doesn’t know undeath.

 

She catches her racing thoughts and shoves them down. She can’t do this. She, if anyone, must keep it together. No fear. No falling apart. There is so much riding on her and she… She can’t break. Not now.

 

The right arm is gone. Instead wicker wood and vines weave together to approximate an arm, a hand, bending at the right places, but she feels where it merges with the rest of her body, feels the point where it becomes flesh each time she moves it. Mostly she just lets it rest limply in her lap. 

 

She stops staring at the mirror to look around. Oh. Of course. Her old bedchamber. It looks almost untouched from when she was last here, a lifetime ago. Still the same teenage obsessions in the bookshelf, the collection of rocks and shells by the windowsill, the dried and pressed flowers hung up above the bed. She wonders if the letters from Arthas are still hidden under the loose floorboard in the corner, and if the enchanted glass orbs gifted from Kael’thas still flicker with the harmless fire he conjured inside them.

 

She was a good girl back then. Hopeful. Naive. Alive.

 

Her mother should have thrown all of it out. She does not want to think about who she was then. Not ever again.

 

It takes her a while to realize she isn’t breathing. She tries to do it, repeat the motions she did every minute while alive, but all it does is strain her already sore body. So she gives up, for now. Perhaps she can practice later.

 

In the early dawn hours, she paces back and forth, measuring her steps until her body stops screaming in pain. Then she walks down to where the guest chambers and wakes up a mage she does not know the name of, making them weave an illusion to cover up her arm and face disfigurement, and she looks almost alive again. The eyes sparkle blue when she sees them in a mirror. It is enough to fool anyone looking at her briefly. 

 

”I am fine.” She keeps saying it, over and over, a mantra to stave off any concern. _I am fine I am fine I am fine._ She tries to smile but feels her cheek tugging in an uncomfortable manner. Her new body is harder. More rigid. Difficult to fit into. It does not feel like her body. 

 

She goes back up to her chamber while everyone else eats breakfast, locks the door and undresses fully. Her body looks almost the same, though it has been some time since she last saw herself like this. Her hips are fuller, her breasts heavier. Age does that. It does not bother her. What does bother her is harder to see. She scratches at her skin, digging her nails in, but no blood comes out. She does not bleed anymore.

 

The swell of panic comes and goes in a minute. She pushes it down. Adds it to a list of things not to think about.

 

A knock on the door snaps her out of her moment. ”Jaina?” Katherine asks from the other side of the door.

 

”Yes?” Her voice echoes. 

 

”Shaw, Wyrmbane and the rest are holding a meeting in fifteen minutes. I thought maybe you wanted to come.” Katherine tries the door but it only rattles, locked. ”Is everything alright?”

 

Jaina picks up her robe. ”I’ll be down.”

 

”Good. And…” Katherine’s voice breaks, and Jaina closes her eyes when she hears her mother sniffle. ”I’m glad you’re back. I’m so sorry, for exiling you…”

 

Jaina leans her forehead against the door, feeling a burn deep in her chest. ”Mother… Please. Not now.” She hears her mother cry softly on the other side for a minute before she leaves.

 

It takes Jaina longer than she wants to get dressed, unwilling to use her right hand to do the clasps and lacings up.Eventually it is decent enough, and she takes her staff with her, leaning on it for support as she descends the stairs. Her boots she decides against, opting to go barefoot. She needs to feel the stone under her to not lose balance.

 

Pushing the door to the council room open, she enters to a hushed silence. They all stare at her, uneasy.

 

”You brought me back,” she says. Her voice is strange in her throat. Raw. ”I am here to serve.”

 

”You should rest,” Katherine says, apparently changing her mind once she sees the state of her daughter, but Jaina waves her concern away.

 

”I am fine.” It must be the thousandth time she says it since returning to Boralus. 

 

Genn sniffs the air, looking displeased. ”You reek of undeath.”

 

”Astute observation,” Jaina says dryly.

 

”What did the banshee do to her?” Genn demands from Alleria.

 

Jaina closes her eyes, trying to wrap her head around this new information. ”Sylvanas… Did this?” 

 

”Yes.” Alleria meets her gaze evenly. 

 

”Why?” Her voice cracks a little.

 

”Because her sisters are sentimental fools.” Genn is working himself into a rage, and Jaina does her best to ignore it.

 

”Why Sylvanas?” Jaina asks Alleria again.

 

Alleria licks her lips. ”Because who else knows? Who else was I meant to ask?”

 

”You could have let me die.” Jaina is trying. She does not want to be angry, or upset, or any emotion at all actually, but that they actively did this to her makes all of that hard to keep under lock and key. 

 

”No.” Alleria looks pained. ”No, we couldn’t. I’m sorry.” 

 

Shaw, leaning against the wall in the corner of the room, has been staring at her since she entered. ”You are not breathing.”

 

Something snaps in Jaina. She is so tired, and she rips the illusion apart. Let them see her as she is now, in her full horror. ”Why would I be? I am undead.” 

 

Genn snarls, loud and vicious, and a shadow passes through the room as he shifts into worgen form and grabs Alleria by her collar. ”Look at her! Look what you two brought back – she is an abomination!”

 

The void surrounds Alleria, her voice gaining a depth of a hundred dead worlds. ”We at least did something. What have you done?”

 

Genn’s eyes narrow. ”Who knows what kind of spells have been cast on her? The banshee queen could be watching us through her eyes right now. She should not be here.”

 

”I go where I please,” Jaina hisses. She can’t bite back her rage anymore, and it is spilling over. She feels magic crackling in her, but it does not come like it used to. It feels wilder. Rawer. She is not sure how much control she has over it.

 

Katherine steps between Jaina and Genn, holding up her hands. ”Genn. Enough. I asked her to come. I thought being back here would help her.”

 

”It’s helping her serve her purpose as a tool for the banshee!” Genn snarls, spitting the words out.

 

Jaina glares at him. ”Your paranoia is getting the better of you.”

 

”I exercise caution, something no one else here seems to care about.” He looks at Katherine. ”We should have left her where we found her. We should have let her stay dead. All we can do now is correct the mistake we did.” He pushes Katherine aside and takes a step closer to Jaina, his claws out.

 

Before anyone else can spring into action, Jaina taps her staff on the floor. ”Enough!” she shouts, gesturing at Genn. A surge of magic snaps through her body and flows from her fingers to Genn. He stops, frozen, and in a second he has resumed his human form. He grasps at his throat, a strangled and horrific noise coming from him. As he does, ice covers his fingers and hands, growing outwards.

 

”What did you do?” Katherine asks, covering her mouth.

 

”I… I don’t…” Jaina stutters, taking a few steps back. She really does not know.

 

Shaw springs into action. ”Get a healer!”

 

Everyone in the room is looking at her, but this time with fear. Or is it worry? She cannot tell. But she wants their eyes gone. She closes her eyes. ”I need… I need to be… Alone.” She casts a teleportation but feels it go wrong even as she does, ripping not only herself but much of the surrounding structure with her. 

 

She lands on all fours, the staff clattering to the floor next to her. The magic in her is winding up towards something, but she has no idea how to stop it now. 

 

A voice laughs above her. ”There you are. I was expecting you.”

 

Jaina looks up, seeing Sylvanas tower above her, an arrow drawn but bow not pointed at her. Not yet, at least. She feels so much – anger, and fear, and disappointment. Is this what it is like, being brought back? Is this what Sylvanas felt when Arthas killed her and condemned her? 

 

The magic tears through her again, and it feels like waves smashing her to pieces. What is happening to her?

 

Sylvanas kneels down, smiling. ”I knew they would fail you.”

 

”Help me,” Jaina whispers, clutching at Sylvanas’ arm as she feels her vision blacken at the edges. ”Please…” And then, all goes dark. 


End file.
